Bird Bonanza!

We've had our biggest day so far and are going out again this afternoon for a second shot at all the birds at the site. We've been seeing night hawks and owls regularly but have yet to catch any of these. A light northern wind helped us out a lot last night. Finally, the abundance is creeping up toward the diversity!

Here is today's count so far:

Least Flycatcher- 1
Prarie Warbler- 2
Yellow Warbler- 3
Common Yellowthroat- 2
Black and White Warbler- 1
Eastern Wood Peewee- 1
Blue Gray Gnatcatcher- 1
*White-eyed Vireo- 1
*Chesnut-sided Warbler- 1
American Redstart- 1
*Black-throated Blue Warbler- 1
*Black-throated Green Warbler- 1
Tennessee Warbler- 1
*Magnolia Warbler- 1
*Northern Parula- 1
Hooded Warbler- 2
Northern Waterthrush- 9
Swainson's Thrush- 2
Red-eyed Vireo- 2
Ovenbird- 1
Prothonotary Warbler- 2
Scarlet Tanager- 1
Summer Tanager- 1
*Blue Grosbeak- 1
Gray Catbird- 1
Northern Mockingbird- 1

*New species for this season

41 individuals, 26 species
We also recaptured a (resident) Brown Thrasher banded here last year. They're one of my favorites.


A brown thrasher caught at BSBO this spring.

The waterthrushes are particularly nice because a PhD from Frank's lab is using Northern Waterthrushes, Magnolia Warblers, and Indigo Buntings for some orientation experiments. Whenever we get at least two individuals from these species, we save them for Zoli. Because we had so many this morning, he drove down from USM immediately to pick them up. He's hoping to test them next week with another four waterthrushes we've caught previously.